With the development of three-dimensional (3D) modeling and computer aided design technologies, attentions have been growing on line guided 3D modeling technologies in recent years. However, most of existing methods focus on using the 2D contour of an object of the same class to model and reshape a 3D model, and such restrictions on contours mean that existing methods can only provide a limited selection of reshaped models. Yet in the field of artistic design, many cross-class elements are introduced to model designs and constructions. Hence model reshaping methods restricted to depending solely on contours of objects of the same class could not sufficiently satisfy the industry needs.
A line guided 3D model reshaping method refers to reshaping a 3D model by applying constraints and deformations to the entire or part of an input 3D model based on the guidance of a 2D contouror skeleton.
Many research works have been done in recent years about shaping 3D models based on constraints of contour. In 2011, Xu et al. edited and reshaped 3D models using the contour of an object of the same class extracted from an image. In 2013, Xie et al. constructed models by combining candidate parts suggested from hand-sketched contour. In 2013, Chen et al. constructed a 3D model from contour of an object in an image and conducting image editing on the model. In 2013, Shtof et al. constructed a model by combining 3D model parts which are directly shaped from hand-sketched contour. According to the method of the present invention, a great variety of model evolutions can be produced by reshaping the input 3D model according to contours of multiple classes of objects, providing ordinary users with a model design system for reshaping existing 3D models using contours from any image.